Moonrakers Towns & Villages

SOME FLOWERS OF WILTSHIRE & THEIR HOMES

There have been FLOWERS in Wiltshire for more then seven centuries, with the first recorded names in Worton and Melksham. One of the earliest references We have found so far is an intriguing scrap of Latin amongst the coroners" inquests published in a volume of Collectanea, which describes how one Clive of Bromham attacked a certain Wilhelmus Flur of Melksham on the Bromham road. William defended himself with an axe, killed his attacker and fled. The outcome is unknown.
We have worked our way through scores of tax lists, wills, Chancery Proceedings, Court Rolls and feet of fines, culminating in the splendid book "The Flowers of Wiltshire" at Wiltshire Record Office. This embodies more than thirty years of specialised research by Mary Helen Flower, perhaps a distant relative. It is possible, using all these sources, to put together a list of names of some of the Flower family in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. They were jurors, farmers and tax collectors: Radolphus de Flore of Potterne and West Lavington, Nicholas and William Flur of Melksham, John and Thomas Flour of Worton and Melksham, Stephen le Flore of Cheverell, Henry Flour of Marston, William and Robert Flower of Worton.

The family accumulated land and property by marrying heiresses of local families, notably the aristocratic landowning and clothier LONGS. From the fifteenth century it is possible to build up a tentative family tree. We have been travelling round Wiltshire villages with an ordnance survey map, trying to identify the houses where they lived. Flowers' Farm at Worton in Potterne, now demolished, caused numerous family lawsuits. It is mentioned in a Star Chamber Court case in 1494, when Edith Stalbrigge Flower, recently widowed, sued her stepson John Flower for non-payment of her annuity.. A later John Flower, a yeoman sheep-farmer, eventually inherited the farm and established a prosperous cloth factory there, with four broadcloth looms and numerous employees.

In 1536, in another Star Chamber case, he sued a Mr. BONFELD for allegedly robbing him in Windsor Great Park of over £59, a gelding, a mare and a gold ring,. This was probably the profit from the sale of his broadcloth, taken by pack pony to Blackwell Hall in London. Interesting points are that no fewer than 3 members of the family mentioned in the case were called John Flower, including two brothers, and that the constable refused to suspect Bonfeld of robbery "because he was a gentleman.

" Flowers' Farm was inherited by later generations, often after litigation, and is now said to be "encased" in a modern timbered mansion at Worton- Prince Hill, called after one of the original pasture fields. Another Flower home was at the nearby hamlet of Whistley, where sixteenth century ruins and an old mill stone mark the site of Whistley Mill. Perhaps it was used for fulling Flower broadcloth.

By the mid sixteenth century, the Flowers of Worton were "gentlemen" with a coat of arms granted by the Visitation of Heralds in 1565. Branches of the family spread to Chitterne, Devizes (where they became Mayors), West Ashton, Bradford, Chippenham, Corsham, Heytesbury, Salisbury and eventually London.

Another of their sixteenth century homes was near Rowde, where John Flower of Rowde, probably a cousin of John the clothier of Worton, did well for himself by marrying Johanna, heiress daughter of William FREEMAN of Foxhanger's Farm. Their son Edward later sold many properties and well over 2.000 acres of land, some of which must have been in the family for generations. The name 'Foxhanger's' (fox-haunted slopes) survives today near the long flight of locks on the Kennet & Avon Canal, near Devizes. However, though there are two Foxhangers Farms close by, neither seems old enough to be the original.

   A number of imposing farms and manor houses connected with the family still survive. A Thomas Flower of Littleton "lease the great tithes of Semington for ten years in 1410. Both the manor house and the farm, near Semington church, are occupied today.

A John Flower was the "Farmer of Westwood", farm manager of Westwood Manor, in 1401. This imposing manor hose, then owned by the Priory of St. Swithins of Winchester, is now in the care of the National Trust, yet another John Floure with his wife Marjorie occupied Hazelbury Manor and 140 acres of land near Box in 1493.

   We discovered Whitchurch farm, Malmesbury, by chance when we came across "John Flower of Whitchurch and John Flower of Seende", sons of Nicholas and Christian Flower of Melksham who made wills in the 1550s. It is now a renovated farm house on a site once owned by Malmesbury Abbey. An old guide book comments on this house, the only Whitchurch in Wiltshire: "Here hath been a church; it is now converted into a dwelling house, but the steeple remaynes still." Now, however, the steeple has vanished.

   We found John of Whitchurch in our search for the "missing link" which we are convinced exists between the Wiltshire and Somerset Flowers. Both families were substantial yeoman sheep-farmers with large farms, in the days when sheep were wealth. Both used the same names for their sons: John, Robert, Nicholas, William, Thomas, and had a habit of naming two Johns in each generation and each branch of the family, even when all survived. This has certainly compounded the problem for us.

   We know that in 1523 a John and Agnes Flower, probably middle-aged, and with two sons named, of course, John, leased a large house just over the Somerset border. This was The Grange, Norton St. Philip, then owned by the Priory of Hinton Charterhouse. John and Agnes had over 700 acres of land, outhouses and a large barn and dovecote, all of which still stand. The house, refaced and with all its front windows unblocked, is now an old people's home called Manor Farm.

Somewhere in West Wiltshire, we think, a John Flower perhaps as far back as 1470 took his share of the family fortune to set himself up as a yeoman farmer in Somerset. We have his family tree for fifteen generations, from 1523 to our own grandchildren. It is based on the dedicated work of another family historian, Norris L. Flower, who worked out the relationships of countless Somerset Flower, and published a detailed family tree. Some day we hope to find John Flower's origin, probably at Worton or Melksham, and link the farming families of Wiltshire and Somerset.

   1. "collectanea, Chippenham Veredictum. 2. The Flowers of Wiltshire,' by Mary Helen Flower. Copies at Wiltshire Record Office, Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society, Devizes, and Sociețty of Genealogists. 3. Star Chamber Proceedings, Henry 8, Bundle 19 354. 4. Star 'socie star Chamber Proceedings, Henry 8, 15, 127. Both extracts are published in Wiltshire Notes & Queries. . Somerset & Dorset Notes & Queries, Volume 29, September 1973.

Jean Flower

Who is William Underwood and did this school teacher marry Joan Caswell?
His will mentions many relatives, and the Underwoods seem to have flourished in Calne, but do I have them listed correctly from this will?
I'm just hoping someone can shed a little more light on this.

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When I was about ten years old someone gave me a blue hard covered book. It had the title, which I forget, done in gold paint.  I spent many a cold night, huddled up in bed with a hot water bottle reading this book, because it was so exciting.  It was all about the pirates and mischievous goings on in the Caribbean. Battles galore, slaving, gold, murders and mass killing everywhere, all the juicy stuff that burns easily into a boy’s memory. I lost the book, but not the memories.
 
About ten years ago my wife and I went to Puerto Rico, for a vacation and we visited the fortress in San Juan. In the courtyard there were many little gift shops and one was a book store. We went in and there was a section called ‘Pirates’, and I walked up to it, gazed for a minute then picked one out. Maybe it was the author’s name German Arciniegas that attracted me?
The preface stated “A breathtaking and magisterial work, encompassing four centuries of history of the Caribbean.”

I had found it, first book I picked up, my pirates book! The title is ‘Caribbean, Sea of the World.’  ISBN 1-55876-312-0

I’ve been to numerous islands in the Caribbean on vacation, and even got to sail a 50 feet yacht through Sir Francis Drake’s Passage’, which was quite the thrill. Drake was a companion of Sir Thomas Baskerville, and I have an extensive family tree of this family. It only recently dawned on me that I should discover which Thomas Baskerville this was. On  checking which one sacked Panama with Drake, I find he lived at Sunningwell, in Berkshire, and had a son Hannibal. Aha!  So, he must have been related to the Baskervilles in Winterbourne Bassett. And my hunch was right. It was easier to hunt for Hannibal, and there he was, already recorded in my tree.

Thomas Baskerville of Winterbourn Bassett is the 2nd cousin (3x removed) of Thomas Baskerville of Sunningwell.

The point of this post? Wiltshire played a huge part in the trade and wars that went on in the Caribbean. I also believe the Baskervilles owned plantations on the Roanoke river in Virginia. This would account for the incredible wealth the Wiltshire Baskerville family had.

If you want a darned good book to snuggle up with this winter, this one is it!